The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

charity

Back in March, we simultaneously spread and scorned the “suspended coffee” meme: a concept originating in the Italian city of Naples where customers can order an extra coffee or food item for a stranger in need that they can request at any time. We dismissed the entire concept as something that a global chain like Starbucks would never implement because it is too complicated to administer and prone to fraud. We were wrong. [More]

It’s not Toys for Tots, but the goal is the same: A Chicago strip club is embarking on its third annual toy drive with its unique angle on convincing customers to give this holiday season — you give an unopened toy suitable for a child and you get a lap dance. It’s a simple premise and it’s likely a very popular scheme with the club’s patrons. Lap dances are usually very expensive, after all. [More]

There is no strict governing body presiding over exactly what form Santa Claus must come in, so why couldn’t he look like a generous eight-year-old boy? The young man from Owasso, Okla. was turning eight and decided he had enough toys. Instead, he opted to turn his birthday party into a benefit to bring in toys and give them away to those less fortunate. [More]

Now that you’ve lugged home all your bags and boxes and Black Friday loot, you might be feeling a little bit… funny about it. Spending all that cash on loved ones during Black Friday/Thursday sales and even online during Cyber Monday is great, of course, but now charitable groups want to steer your need to spend in another direction with the first ever Giving Tuesday. Oh hey, that’s tomorrow! [More]

It’s not just home-repair scams that pop up in the wake of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. There will also be grade-A-holes out there trying to trick consumers out of money by pretending to be raising money to help those hurt by the storm. [More]

Johnny went to Walmart early in the morning to purchase a huge amount of soup for a food drive. This is a case where he couldn’t win: visiting the store at 6 AM, it was understaffed and only the self checkout was open. If he had visited later in the day, it would have been busy and cashiers wouldn’t have had time to help him locate hundreds of cans of soup to donate. [More]

Getting your money back when something doesn’t work isn’t an unfamiliar concept. But what if the money you paid was for a charity? Many viewers who shelled out $4.95 to watch Bill O’Reilly vs. Jon Stewart live online during their Saturday night debate were frustrated when there were streaming problems that didn’t allow them to actually watch the event. Half of the proceeds from said event were meant to go to charity, so is asking for a refund the thing to do? [More]

When we hear that fellow humans in faraway places are suffering, we want to help. Some of us write a check, sign in to PayPal, or make a donation using our phones. But there’s nothing quite as satisfying as sending tangible goods to people in need. The problem is that well-meaning people can waste resources and time on the ground in the disaster area by sending inappropriate items that will ultimately end up in the dump. [More]

In what can be construed as a sign of economic recovery, Americans were in a more giving mood in 2011 than they were in 2010. Donors forked over a collective $347 billion to charities last year, $24.2 billion more than the year before. [More]

Whenever you fill your heart with joy by contributing to a worthy cause, you get the bonus assurance that you’ll see further benefits from the donation come tax time. But the belief is not always well founded, because in the eyes of the IRS, not all charitable donations are created equal. [More]

There’s an annual event at Cold Stone Creamery outlets called the World’s Largest Ice Cream Social. Part of the chain’s September fund-raising drive for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, it’s billed as an event offering free ice cream during a three-hour period on a certain day. Melissa had put this on her calendar weeks in advance, because she’s on a budget, and hey: free ice cream! But she arrived at the mall to find employees posted at the Cold Stone door, not allowing anyone in unless they made a donation first. That’s not free, that’s a cover charge. Isn’t it? [More]

So you have some stuff to get rid of around the house and you want to donate it, but you want to make sure it goes to a place where it gets the best use. Good thing the Miss Minimalist blog has a list of 101 worthy places to send your clutter to that can help out. Women’s shoes? Send them to Dress For Success, which helps low-income women get the garb they need for job interviews. Old Nintendo GameCube? How about the Get-Well Gamers Foundation which brings video games to children’s hospitals. For 99 more suggests, check out the list on Miss Minimalist. Got a charity she left off? Tout it in the comments. [More]

Epic is the only word to describe this coupon genius who bought $1658.53 of stuff from Walgreens for only $19.99. It took 6 hours to check out the over 100 transactions necessary to complete the purchase. Why did the manager gladly let him do this? [More]

When a stranger knocks on your door, it’s almost always someone asking for something rather than someone willing to give you something. So it’s understandable to have a closed-door policy unless you see through the peephole that it’s Ed McMahon. And even if it is Ed McMahon, he’s most likely a zombie rather than a Publishers Clearing House representative because he died last year. [More]

The guy who offered to set his car on fire in exchange for “loanations” (his word–he says he’s going to pay back all donations) managed to raise enough money to prevent the foreclosure sale of his house yesterday. Below is a video of him handing over a check for $21,000. The only problem is, now he’s saying he might not burn the car. [More]

Last month Chipotle put out a call for customers to forward 500,000 junk email messages to nojunk@chipotlejunk.com, pledging to donate $50,000 to charity in return. Now the maker of foil-wrapped burritos has upped the ante, asking for another half million male enhancement and fake dating site queries in order to hike up its donation to $100,000. [More]

Jing tells Consumerist that he she thought that donating some items to the Salvation Army would be satisfying and relatively simple. Unfortunately, he she hadn’t counted on the people handling pickups for his her local branch to have the sort of vague sense of time that one normally associates with cable installers or appliance repair technicians. [More]

Reader David would like to suggest that the next time the USPS wants to hold a food drive that requires you to put food in your mailbox on a certain day — they should tell you before that day arrives so that you don’t need a time machine. [More]